"Cruelty is an
inherent part of the horse racing industry. Thousands of horses are
produced annually, from which a few racers are chosen, the rest blown
away like chaff in the wind. The
big money is in racing the 2 and 3 year olds, for whom training begins
at 1½, before their bodies are fully developed and their growth plates
have closed. Unnatural weight is put on their backs, concussive stress
on their bones, and they are forced to submit to an overly strict
training regimen. Nightmarish injuries like on-the-track fractures leave
them finished by the age of 4–6, when they are barely mature. Decisions
about their fate are made in the interest of the bottom line dollar, not
their health. Injured animals are loaded up on drugs to run one more race.

"The unnatural stresses
inherent in competing so aggressively and at such a young age also
engender problems such as gastric ulceration and pulmonary (lung field)
bleeding, not observed in horses worked at reasonable levels. These
health and injury problems once again necessitate — economically — the
use of drugs to maintain the horse’s racing value (but not well-being).

"Some horse-owners are either
unwilling or unable to provide expensive veterinary care for a horse who
may not be successful enough to earn his or her keep. Even when they
provide veterinary care, they typically do not allow the horse
sufficient time for recovery. Instead, they the send horse out to train
or race on still-unhealed limbs. This purely economic motivation stands
behind the racetrack saying 'A horse makes no money just standing in his
stall.' Once they decide that the horse does not have, or had
exhausted, his race-winning potential, they sell the horse to an equine
auction, from where horses are either sent to a slaughterhouse that
ships horsemeat to the European and Japanese market, or into a downward
spiral of abuse at the hands of new owners who may think they would like
a retired racehorse, but forget about horses’ longevity and the expense
necessary to maintain them properly.

"Experience in the U.S. shows
that the most expensive horses and the wealthiest owners race their
horses at the most expensive racecourses, while less wealthy owners with
less expensive horses race at marginal courses. The profit margin at
these marginal venues, where the 'has-been’s' or the ones who never made
it to the top are raced, is lower. At these places, where owners have
fewer funds and the prizes are smaller, horse care is compromised even
more and the cruelty is even more damaging and prevalent.

"The
undeniable and inescapable problem with the thoroughbred industry is
that thousands of foals must be produced in order to develop a few dozen
good racers. The excess often meet with inhumane ends and similarly,
when race horses are no longer money-earning winners, they too often end
up neglected, abandoned, and starving at the hands of uncaring owners,
with their final end being the slaughterhouse. For instance, a Kentucky
Derby winner was slaughtered in Japan in 2004, despite his spectacular
win a decade earlier. The distressing fate of the thousands of abused,
neglected and abandoned horses in the United States is recognized by the
American Association of Equine Practitioners — the world’s premiere
equine veterinary organization — as its primary and most pressing
problem.

"United States legislators,
both state and federal, have attempted to constrain the industry’s
economically-driven incentives and proven cruelty against horses through
an elaborate set of statutes and regulations. Unfortunately, these
attempts have largely failed. The industry continues to operate at the
status quo, which includes drugging and other unacceptable practices.
How will the Israeli people feel if the specter of numerous starved and
abandoned horses — the result of unfettered greed — becomes a major blot
on the nation’s honor? No moral country should allow this cruel
industry to gain a foothold."

Dr. Holly Cheever
was a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Harvard University, and she was first
in her 1980 graduating class at Cornell University Veterinary School.

Dr. Cheever wrote two chapters in the book Shelter Medicine for
Veterinarians and Staff, published by Blackwell Press. The chapters
include a guide to investigating animal abuse, especially equine abuse.
She was a contributing author to How to Investigate Animal Cruelty in
NY State — A Manual of Procedures.

She has won awards from the ASPCA and the HSUS (largest humane
organizations in the U.S.) and from the New York State Troopers (New
York State Police) for her work in cruelty investigations,
prosecutions, and humane education. Dr. Cheever was voted Veterinarian
of the Year by the New York State Humane Association, and she currently
serves as their Vice President. Dr. Cheever teaches a course to New York
State law officers (police, state troopers, animal control officers,
and others) four times a year on how to investigate animal abuse. She has been
around horses all her
life, including race horses.

"I have been investigating animal welfare
issues for ten years, and during the last six years I have published a
number of reports on the welfare of racehorses. It is my opinion, based
on scientific data published by research groups throughout the world,
that horse racing and animal suffering are inextricably linked. Horses,
which are often raced when less than two years old, endure massively
high incidences of stomach ulceration, lung hemorrhaging (even during
low-intensity exercise) and bone weakness (sometimes weakening by over
forty percent during the course of a race).

"Racehorses are whipped up to
30 times during one race, according to a survey conducted by the
non-profit organization Animal Aid. The survey showed that the whip was
used even on young horses, during their first race. Horses in a state of
total exhaustion and already out of contention were also beaten. The
whip was used on the neck and shoulders, as well as the hind quarters.
Horses were observed being whipped 20, even 30 times during a race.

"The Jockey Club is
responsible for regulating and enforcing the Rules of Racing, but the
rules are lacking in clarity and very poorly enforced by Race Stewards.
None of the violations observed during the survey period drew a sanction
for the offending riders.

"Every year, around 300
racehorses die on British race tracks as a result of fatal falls or
serious injuries, most often breaks to the legs, backs, or shoulders;
heart attacks; or a drop in performance that makes them commercially
non-viable. In addition to the hundreds raced to death, thousands more
are killed or abandoned to neglectful or abusive situations every year
because they can no longer run fast enough to be profitable.

"Around 5,000 leave
racing every year, the same number who enter it. Very few enjoy a decent
retirement. Some are shot within weeks of their money-earning days
coming to an end. A small number become breeders. Many are slaughtered,
their bodies sold to countries like France, where people eat horse meat,
or they end up as pet food. Others are exported, or sold from owner to
owner in a downward spiral of abuse and neglect. In the U.S., according
to an Associated Press article, as many as 7,100 registered
thoroughbreds went to slaughter in 1998, the equivalent of 22 percent of
the 1998 U.S. thoroughbred foal crop.

"Because of their personal
histories and temperament, only a very few retired racehorses make good
'pets'. All retired race horses are very high-maintenance, expensive to
maintain, and long-lived. The specter of having to spend many thousands
of dollars on them over several decades predisposes them to being
abandoned.

"Some have been discovered
weak, emaciated, and forgotten. Even champion prize winners, once their
racing days are over, have been found in appalling conditions. The 1984
UK Grand National winner Hallo Dandy was found in a field, thin, tired,
with scars on his back and his ribs poking through.

"And with (according to UK gambling charity GamCare) around 60,000
people in the UK addicted to gambling on horse races to an extent that
compromises their own well-being and that of their families, horse
racing is clearly responsible for considerable human as well as animal
suffering.

"Horse racing is bad for animals and bad for people. It has no place
in an enlightened society."

Dr. Tim O’Brien is an independent
animal welfare researcher. Since being awarded his PhD in biological
sciences, Dr. O’Brien has been Head of Research at Compassion in World
Farming, and a Director of The Genetics Forum. He has advised UK
government select committees on dairy farming, and on the use of
antibiotics in farming. He has authored reports into factory farming and
human health, farm animal genetic engineering, and the links between
intensive livestock farming, poverty and the environment, as well as
researching the welfare of racehorses.

"Horses are forced to race
even while injured, causing enormous suffering. Veterinarians
recommended that War Emblem, the racehorse who won the first two legs of
the Triple Crown in 2001, undergo surgery to repair bone chips in one
ankle and both knees. His trainer, deciding that surgery would take away
from training and racing time, forced him to race while injured. War
Emblem lost the Belmont Stakes, no longer races, and has been sold
twice. The same trainer continued to race a 3-year-old Thoroughbred
after knee surgery. The horse broke his shoulder during a workout and
had to be euthanized.

"Most young horses will
develop shin soreness and should be given a break from racing for
several weeks until they recover, but it is not uncommon for trainers to
force them to continue training and racing, believing this 'compacts the
bone.' These horses are in agony and collapse if touched on the shins.

"So they can race even when
injured, horses are drugged. In the horse racing industry, the
profit-making motive, not animal welfare, is all that matters. Every
horse at the 2003 Kentucky Derby was given a shot of Lasix to control
bleeding in the lungs, and most were probably given the
anti-inflammatory drug, phenylbutazone.

"A recent front page New
York Times article listed the most common ways used to enhance a
race horse’s performance: bronchodilators to widen air passages,
hormones to increase oxygen-carrying red blood cells, cone snail or
cobra venom injected into a horse’s joints to ease pain and stiffness,
and a 'milkshake' of baking soda, sugar, and electrolytes delivered
through a tube in the horse’s nose to increase carbon dioxide in the
horse’s bloodstream and lessen lactic-acid buildup, warding off fatigue.
The article noted that batteries are even concealed under a horse’s skin
that deliver a shock when the horse is flagging.

"Laboratories cannot detect
every illegal drug, of which there could be thousands, according to the
executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium.
Morphine was suspected in the case of Be My Royal, who won a race
limping. Trainer Bob Baffert was suspended for using morphine on a
horse. One trainer was suspended for using an Ecstasy-type drug on five
horses and another was barred from racetracks for using clenbuterol. A
New York veterinarian and a trainer were brought up on felony charges
when the body of a missing racehorse was found at a farm and authorities
concluded that the cause of her death was a performance-enhancing drug.

"Horses are sentient
creatures, not inanimate, disposable objects. There is nothing romantic
or glamorous about racing, despite the industry’s media promotions,
and there are many ways to gamble besides racing horses. In this day and
age, it is unconscionable to exploit animals so humans can gamble,
particularly when such serious violations of basic welfare are an
inherent part of the industry."

Dr.
Eva Berriman is a veterinarian and technical teacher who has bred,
owned, and trained Standardbreds and Thoroughbreds over many years, and
who showed and competed with Arabians. She was employed as swabbing
veterinarian by the major racing and trotting clubs in Brisbane and taught
veterinary nursing and horse management courses at Technical and Further
Education (TAFE) colleges in Queensland.

Dr. Berriman wrote a book that strongly emphasized welfare issues in the
care and management of horses. She also developed an open-learning horse management course and
co-wrote a series of videos on horse care used in post-secondary
education throughout Australia and shown on TV there. She has been a
frequent contributor on horse and other animal welfare issues to
newspapers, magazines, and radio programs in Australia, and she wrote
and maintains a website of horse management articles.

"Running comes naturally to
horses. It is part of their genetic makeup to flee from what they fear,
and for some, it is also a form of play. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t
love to watch a herd of horses running across a field. However, when
economic incentives enter the scene, an entertaining sport for horses
turns into a cruel activity in which the human turns the horse into a
systematically maltreated commodity.

"In the U.S., the 'sport' of
horse racing sends thousands of horses who are not fast enough to make
the grade to the slaughterhouse. Those who do make it to the track are
raced when they are too young, before the growth plates in their joints
have closed. This causes injuries and lameness rarely seen in riding
horses, especially at such a young age.

"Riding horses are started at 3-4 years of age. Race horses, by
comparison, are often started as young as 1.5 years. Riding horses are
brought along slowly and with as little stress to their still maturing
joints as possible, while race horses are forced to run beyond their
limits, stressing their legs and pounding their still developing joints
into the ground. When the riding horse is
just entering his prime, the race horse is ending his career, and
possibly his life.

"The fate of thousands of racing
horses who have finished their career is one of the major problems of
the U.S. equestrian community. There are not enough homes for them all."

Jennifer Hack is Director
of Investigations for the United States Equine Rescue League,
supervising the investigation and prosecution of cases of cruelty to
horses. She has been a riding clinician and judge for nine years, and an
equine instructor and trainer for 18 years. As a student, she worked for
a member of the U.S. Olympic Equestrian Team (Lendon Gray). She is an
H-A graduate of the United States Pony Club, the highest rating given
for teaching, training, and stable management.